Living Planet | Deutsche Welle

By DW.COM | Deutsche Welle

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Every Thursday, a new episode of Living Planet brings you environment stories from around the world, digging deeper into topics that touch our lives every day. The prize-winning, weekly half-hour radio magazine and podcast is produced by Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster - visit dw.com/environment for more.

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CleanLiving Planet: Denying the inevitable

It's hard to believe but there are still people out there who refuse to believe that climate change is real, even when the island they live on is threatened by global warming. This week on Living Planet, we find out how climate change denial is connected to right-wing nationalism, how lobbyists push fossil fuels at COP24, and how award-winning drinking water is in danger in Greece.

As world leaders meet for COP24 to discuss climate change, we're asking what home means to the people — and animals — we share the planet with. This week on Living Planet, we're looking at what decisions are being made to help protect planet Earth, our home.

Why did tragedy strike an environmental activist couple in Chile? Who will win the fight over Germany’s coal phase-out and why is the movement attracting protesters from around the globe? Do beach cleanups actually help, or just soothe our conscience? We dig into these tricky subjects on this week’s episode of Living Planet.

From a small amphibian with miraculous regeneration properties, to wild animals wandering the streets of Nairobi — and even the healing powers of our forests. We take a closer look at the weird and wonderful life that calls our planet home, and ask some hard questions about the future of the planet's biodiversity.

As our environment changes, we can change with it. From transforming plastic waste into stylish paving stones in Ghana, to balancing a booming lithium industry with environmental protection in Chile to tackling the problem of food waste in Berlin. Plus, could warmer temperatures lead to the birth of a British wine industry?

How will life on Earth change under 3-degree warming? We journey to one location on each of our planet's continents to discover the far-reaching consequences of climate change — and find out how communities are responding. On part 2: Hurricanes in North America, vanishing traditional ways of life in South America, and coral bleaching off the coast of Fiji.

How will life on Earth change under 3-degree warming? We journey to one location on each of our planet's continents to discover the far-reaching consequences of climate change — and find out how communities are responding. On part 1: Dramatic changes in Antarctica, bushfires in Australia, drought and water scarcity in Africa and living green in Europe.

When it comes to a world limit for global warming, 1.5 is the new 2 degrees. If temperatures continue to rise, we may lose our coral, food, alpine snow and beer, among many other things. We zoom in on these issues and ask how we can prevent huge lifestyle changes — and find out how technology can help us.

Plastic — are we addicted? We look at our relationship with plastic pollution — and in the spirit of recycling, we're highlighting some best-ofs from previous coverage and looking at plastic-free living, reloaded.

Our food choices affect the environment around us, but just how much? From Scandinavia to Somalia, we explore different diets around the world and take a closer look at how what we eat impacts the environment — and how the environment influences what we eat.

What happens when our water is contaminated, and who protects it? We meet the people cleaning our beaches, protecting our drinking water, and studying why there's not enough - or sometimes too much water.

Preventing mining pollution in Brazil, wind power finally taking off in Lebanon, and harvesting water from volcanic steam in Kenya. We take a look at development, progress and innovation by looking closer at the elements.

On this week's show, we join treetop activists in Germany's Hambach Forest as they fight to save the land from being mined for brown coal, we venture into the woods of Bavaria with volunteers helping to keep Germany's green lung healthy and we discover how residents in the UK have kept fracking at bay. Plus, we visit a group of students in Uganda who are using plants as natural pesticides.

People who grow our food face challenges around the world. We take a tour, from organic farms in Brexit Britain to cattle ranches in the KwaZulu Natal, via Senegal's nascent chemical-free farming movement and a mental-health crisis among farmers in rural France.

We are drowning in plastic! It pollutes our oceans, beaches, rivers and forests. Let's talk solutions. We meet "trash heroes" in Indonesia's Bali who are trying to do away with plastic. The East African country of Kenya was so fed up with its plastic waste, it imposed a ban on plastic bags one year ago. We check in to see how they are faring. And we have more on bioplastics.

Thanks to the invention of pesticides, fresh foods can be imported from every corner of the world, available everywhere at anytime. But this comes at a price: Overuse of pesticides in agriculture can seriously damage our environment — and our health.

Without water, there is no life. Water conservationist Rajendra Singh is bringing dead streams back to life in India. Thousands of dead fish have turned up in the Rhine River in Switzerland — fish are vulnerable to high temperatures as their environment heats up. And, an entrepreneur wants to drag icebergs all the way to South Africa!

Just how many visitors are too many? The Greek island of Santorini struggles with tourism numbers it can't handle. How long until rising sea levels have completely destroyed Kenya's historic sites along its coast? And how hot is too hot? Glaciers in New Zealand have receded so much it's actually become too dangerous to hike all the way to the top.

It's hot out there. The heat wave sweeping across the northern hemisphere this week has farmers worried, especially where the high temperatures are combined with drought. We look at how farmers around the world are protecting their livestock and crops as the global temperature creeps ever higher.

Tarantulas, scorpions and cockroaches are not appealing — but they are important! Eels in Canada are being chopped up by dams — but they don't get the attention they deserve because they aren't cute like pandas. Poisonous scorpions are more important for our ecosystem than you may have thought. And a taste for tarantula in Cambodia has decimated their numbers.

When it comes to protecting the environment, sometimes the most unusual ideas are the best ones. From using donkey dung to help save an endangered bat to brewing beer out of old bread, we examine some of the strange and innovative ways people are helping save the planet.

Shoot to kill or live and let live? We're not always kind to animals, unless perhaps they're in a zoo. We'll get up close and personal with a zebra finch and find out why Germans really love their bears.

Women in Saudi Arabia made the headlines this week. They are now allowed to drive, thanks not least to the campaigning by some bold women. In this week's episode, we'll meet some other bold women: Abu Dhabi's first female falconer, an Indian activist fighting plastic pollution, an Italian investigative journalist uncovering a mozzarella scandal and a Canadian diver exploring underwater mysteries.

Most people think of insects as pests to get rid of — but our survival may be intimately tied to them. The problem is: Insects are in decline. Find out how the Berlin Philharmonic is drawing attention to the issue, why insects don't live at the seaside, and what makes bugs so important in the first place.

We live on a planet of finite resources but our demand for new consumer products and technologies keeps growing. That's driving a race to extract materials from ever-more remote corners of the Earth – and beyond.

Ever more people in the world are living in urban areas. But how can we make our cities sustainable? From the dangers of air pollution to shrinking natural spaces and our carbon footprint in cities — it's high time for action.

Fertile land in Nigeria is being eaten up drought, fueling conflict between herdsmen who need what's left to graze their animals and farmers who need it for their crops. Meanwhile in East Africa, tensions are rising over who controls the waters of the Nile.